US Sentences 9 Protesters to Up to 100 Years as Trump Labels Antifa Terror Threat
Updated
Updated · The Guardian · Oct 25
US Sentences 9 Protesters to Up to 100 Years as Trump Labels Antifa Terror Threat
1 articles · Updated · The Guardian · Oct 25
Summary
Nine people were sentenced to 30 to 100 years over a July 2025 protest at a Texas ICE detention center, including six who did not fire a weapon and one man who received 30 years for moving a box of zines.
The sentences followed Trump’s September 2025 order designating Antifa a domestic terror threat and NSPM-7, which directed federal agencies to build a strategy against alleged domestic political violence.
The FBI then set up a 10-agency Joint Mission Center, and prosecutions have already expanded beyond immigrants as the administration links anti-Americanism, anti-capitalism and anti-Christianity to terrorism.
The report argues the approach echoes El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, whose emergency rule has jailed about 100,000 people—roughly 2% of adults—while rights groups say at least half are likely not gang members.
Critics including former Democratic leaders and legal advocates say the pattern of raids, harsh sentences and emergency rhetoric points to a broader effort to criminalize opposition before the US midterm elections.